1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is that of the treatment of liquids. More precisely, the invention relates to the putting of liquids and, notably, potable water or effluents, into contact with a treatment gas. A particular example of the application of the invention is the ozonation of liquids. The invention also relates to the treatment of gas by a transfer water.
The invention can be applied to a great many fields where it is necessary to provide contact, for a minimum fixed duration, between a liquid phase and a gas phase. Notable examples include the operations of disinfection, oxidation, deodorization or decoloration.
Other applications of the invention will also appear easily to those skilled in the art. These applications relate especially to the treatment of waste water: such as water from urban systems or from the food processing, pharmaceutical, chemical and other industries, and also to many industrial manufacturing processes.
The installation of the invention can be used to treat any type of liquid with any type of gas, for example oxygen, chlorine, carbon dioxide or sulphur dioxide. In the same way, it is also possible to treat gases by means of transfer liquids such as, notably, H.sub.2 S, NH.sub.3, SO.sub.2 +water.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With respect to installations for disinfection by ozone, there are known disinfection tanks with contactor having ozone diffusion by porous stones. Such installations have many drawbacks, essentially due to the lack of total control over the hydrodynamic motions in the tanks. For, the treatment medium is a two-phase medium, i.e. it is constituted by a emulsion consisting of the liquid to be treated and the treating gas. This emulsion takes the form of bubbles of varying sizes and generates eddy flows.
Problems thus arise. These include problems of the equal division of the flow rates, due to phenomena of heterogeneous flows, eddies, still zones and hydraulic short-circuits in the treated flow, and problems of homogeneity of the concentration in treatment gas.
To provide for the minimum time of contact needed for all the liquid to be treated, it is necessary to maintain a substantial average time of passage in the reactors. This notably calls for oversized structures that are costly and take up a great deal of space.
Furthermore, the installations for gas diffusion by porous stones often display many problems due to the aging of the pores.
The installation of the invention is designed to overcome these different drawbacks of the prior art.